Trolltech to adopt GPL 3 for Qt

Trolltech, the company behind the cross-platform open-source widget toolkit …

Trolltech CEO Haavard Nord announced today at the KDE release event that the company's cross-platform open-source Qt application development toolkit will be released under the GPL 3. This move, which comes shortly after the release of KDE 4.0 (watch for our review on Sunday night), will allow the open-source desktop environment to adopt the new version of the GPL.

Nord discussed the ways in which Trolltech's open-source development model facilitates symbiosis between the two communities and describes GPL 3 adoption as a continuation of the company's efforts to build greater trust with the OSS community. Nord thanked the KDE development community for the role it has played in Trolltech's commercial success, including contributing bug fixes and demonstrating the broad viability of Qt for large-scale development. Members of the open-source community are very enthusiastic about Trolltech's announcement.

"I am very pleased that Trolltech has decided to make Qt avaliable under GPL v3," said GNU founder and FSF ringleader Richard Stallman in a statement. "This will allow parts of KDE to adopt GPL v3 too. Even better, Trolltech has made provisions for a smooth migration to future GPL versions if it approves of them."

Here at the KDE release event, Nord's announcement was met with applause. Like Trolltech's initial decision to move from its own QPL license to the GPL, this announcement and the company's more recent decision to adopt the GPL for all platforms rather than just Linux, demonstrate the company's ongoing commitment to openness.